Sunday, February 12, 2012

Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf released the following statement today on the NJEA and the achievement gap

There's a huge fight in NJ going on between the union and reformers (led by Gov. Christie and Commissioner Cerf, among others) over a tenure reform bill in the legislature. Here's a great piece by Cerf on the shocking achievement gap, which the union tries to downplay:

The NJEA over the last several months has indicated again and again that they are not especially troubled with the significant achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their more advantaged peers in New Jersey.

In December, the NJEA distributed a press release suggesting that my claim that New Jersey has a "shameful" achievement gap was a "straw man" and based on a "deliberate misuse of data." Instead, NJEA President Barbara Keshishian argued that while there is an achievement gap in New Jersey between white and African American students, and also high-income and low-income students, we really shouldn't worry about it because it is not as bad as the gap in some other states.

Earlier this week, when asked about students stuck in failing schools across the state, a leader of the NJEA said, "life's not always fair, and I'm sorry about that."

Before we look at the evidence, let's look at why this matters. The notion of an achievement gap may not be something that matters to the NJEA. But it matters to the nearly 40% of our students who can't read at grade level in 3rd grade – an indicator closely tied to future success in school. It matters to the thousands of students that drop out of high school or even before high school each year.

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Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf released the following statement today on the NJEA and the achievement gap